The Evolution of Ryuuzaki Sakuno
by ezyl
Summary: So this is what happened to girl power. RyoSakuOC.
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** _The Evolution of Ryuuzaki Sakuno_, by ezylrybbit  
**Rated:** PG-13. Profanity, darlings. And that darned abusive writing style.  
**Summary:** So this is what happened to girl power. A Ryoma/OC/Sakuno like story.

--

_chapter one - and you'll hear _me_ coming from a mile away_

--

I don't think I've ever been really passionate about anything. There's never been anything I'd live to die for. Never anything really worth it. I've never felt the need to justify any of my actions—I've always been the kind of guy to go along with it and object if my personal interest was at harm. I guess people would call me narcissistic. It's only to a degree. And after that degree, I can honestly say that I don't give a shit.

_Tennis is different._

_Seishun High School Tennis Club Application Form_

_(Please print clearly)_

Name:_ Takagi Yuuki_

Age: _16_

Grade level:_ second-year_

Interests?_ Tennis. Watching Wimbledon. Chemistry._

Conflicts with tennis club?_ Science Bowl and film club._

Did you attend Seishun Gakuen?_ No. Transferred from Fukagawa Chuu in Hokkaido._

The application form went on. Some stuff about medical insurance and tennis achievements, and a few questions regarding grades and parents, the usual things that nosy high school tennis clubs have to figure out about you before you even try out. Same old, same old. I fill out the rest of the paper and jam it back into the book bag, reaching for my new chemistry textbook.

I would never miss my old school. My class had been more dysfunctional and likely to spontaneously combust than the national prison. All the girls wanted nothing better than to get into your pants and all the guys chose soccer over tennis, calling me a pussy and a manwhore for the unintentional seduction of their girlfriends. (It wasn't _strictly_ true—I'd only slept with Kishimoto's girl twice. She kept pushing herself on me and there's only a few times a guy can think straight before he's forced to go forward with it and fuck a girl. Especially if she's got nice boobs and cute hair.)

So call me a player. I _am _one. For the three years I've attended Fukagawa Chuu, I'd had no steady girlfriend and thirty overzealous individuals who listed me as their boyfriend. I knew only the surnames of half of them.

And to most of the male population's greater dismay, I was the best tennis player there. It hardly took any effort to become buchou over twenty or so freshman brats. The girls loved me because I was indifferent to their charms and careful flattery. I had four devoted fanclubs –three more on the fence– and a kissing booth at the school fair all to myself. There were the advanced-placement classes, too. I was top in the Chemistry department and I went to the National Science Bowl last year and earned a solo prize in quantum mechanics.

Imagine their surprise, then, when I decided to throw that all away and transfer into Seishun High. Kishimoto's girlfriend stalked me into Tokyo on the bullet train before I was forced to phone the metropolitan police station.

There wasn't a specific reason, I don't think. Just got bored of the whole lot. Seishun's supposed to be really good, anyway, and when my dad got a job transfer into Aoyama, I went along with him.

I took off my glasses, gave the lenses a good rub with my shirt, and leaned back on my chair. Two more days until the beginning of my second year in high school. _Ranking tournament tomorrow_, according to that stony-cold team-captain who kept twitching every time the smiling brunette next to him pinched his ass. Seishun High's standards are apparently quite high, and the tennis club regulars they had won the Nationals in junior high. I doubt I'd be disappointed.

--

There's a certain subtlety in pre-game anxiety vibes. For me, they almost always start at the toes, and work their way up my body until I'm locked tight and I can only wheeze like a fish out of water. You learn to conquer those over the years, but as I take one look at the sign-up sheet, I know I'm in trouble. In the D-box on the games-chart, next to the words _Takagi Yuuki_, in a neat scrawl—_Echizen Ryoma_.

What do I know about Echizen Ryoma?

Nothing, really. Save for the fact that _he's fucking famous_. The junior league championships in America? The All-Japan juniors? Featured in _Gekkan Pro Tennis_ in about fifty million issues? Fangirls and pedophiles buy prints of his face and parts of his body on dirty calendars, in sets of dozens. _Samurai Junior_, they call him.

I think my heart's going to stop.

--

I lost. In the first ranking match, I lost to the first year. I didn't expect to do any better…as it _was _Echizen—I caught as much from the squealing and the bellowing from the sidelines. He's got this mean Twist Serve that creeps up on you. It near as hell hit me in the face. I thought my Higuma Otoshi would be difficult to deal with, but that kid didn't even flinch as he sped effortlessly all the way to the back of the court in split-steps.

"Game, set, Echizen. Six games to love."

He wasn't even sweating, and when he shook my hand with a casual smirk, I had the feeling that he didn't even bother to use any of his good moves on me.

These people were_ mad_.

As I sat back down on the bleacher, the one guy I _did _manage to win over in my second match, and by a tie-break filled with mind-numbing Dunk Smashes that were still vibrating through my arm, ran over to my bench and handed me a bottle of water, "Hey, Takagi, right?"

I nodded, "And you're Momoshiro. You've got a great smash."

"You've seen nothing. I didn't feel like using the Super Momo Special today." Momoshiro grinned, "And you can just call me Momo. Are you a second year, too?"

"Yeah. I'm still an amateur in tennis, though. I've never experienced anything close to this intimidating, before." I tried to smile. There was a muscle cramp in my leg from returning his smashes.

"That's not the point. You can do a Higuma Otoshi! Imagine that! I've only seen two other people in my entire life who've done one. That doesn't count Echizen, of course. When that little brat's in his game mode, he can do anything…"

"_Only two?_" I was aghast. _What the hell?_ "Back home in Hokkaido, I was the only one around for _miles_ who could perform that move!"

Momo shrugged, "You get used to it, here. Though I'd dare say that your Higuma's better than Oshitari's from Hyotei. And your serve, come to think of it. Eiji-senpai told me that you put a nice spin on the ball. He's got good eyes."

"Is that the brunette?" I asked, thinking about the guy who had gone down to the tennis buchou with only one point in every game. He had been observing my match with Echizen in a polite, unnerving expression that radiated an unrecognizable presence.

"Hell, no." Momo laughed, "That's Fuji-senpai. He's a genius and he's got the most bizarre tastes. I saw him eat cactus flesh for lunch the other day. He's got a roomful of cacti, I heard. Kikumaru Eiji-senpai's the one with red hair. He thinks he's a cat, most of the time, and the rest of the time he's cuddling teddy bears."

I raised my brows. These guys were nearly as whacked-out as my old tennis team. Images of my old teammates appeared in my head. I blocked them out of my mind as Momoshiro continued to ramble about toothpaste brands and Fuji's oddities.

"So what about the rest of the team?"

"Well, right now there's Tezuka-buchou, Oishi-fukubuchou, Fuji-senpai, Eiji-senpai, you, Kaidoh, and Echizen. Oishi-senpai and Kikumaru-senpai…they're our Golden Pair. Tezuka, Fuji-senpai, and Echizen usually play the singles spots. That means you'll have to team up with Kaidoh. He's an annoying as hell, I'm warning you."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Annoying as hell, that mamushi," Momo said enthusiastically, "he hisses."

"I see," I said.

"We used to have nine members," Momo scratched his head absent-mindedly, "that was in junior high. Then Taka-san quit tennis 'cause he wanted to help his dad fulltime with sushi-making. Kawamura Sushi still gives us great discounts, anyway.

"And Inui-senpai wanted to focus on Physics this year, so he quit, too. He says he wants to study engineering at Tokyo College. I think he'll blow up the first thing he builds with Aozu. Hey, do you want to go grab a hamburger later?"

"Is it over already?" I looked around the tennis courts. Most of the people were packing up, and there was now a crowd of girls circled around the Echizen boy.

"Well, I'm not gonna stay any longer," Momo said, "I'm hungry."

"Alright, then," I shouldered my tennis bag, "where to?"

But Momo had already become distracted. "Oi! Ryuu-chan, wait up!" He called, and a feminine-looking boy walking in front of us stopped in his steps, stooping over to tie his shoes. He looked about fourteen or fifteen, brown hair tied back in a small ponytail.

"What's up, Momo-chan-senpai? Got your sorry ass kicked in the tournament for once?" He grinned, when we caught up with him. He had a wide grin and a baseball cap on backwards, clad in a tennis uniform that I had never seen before. He took one look at me and clicked his tongue. "Oh, are you Momo's new handbag? I'm Ryuu, freshman here."

"Handbag?" I asked, bewildered.

Momo rolled his eyes, "This is Takagi. He's the new regular on the tennis team. We're switching places for a while. He beat me in the ranking tournament. Will you believe it?"

"Strangely, I do," Ryuu said, "are you guys going to get a burger together? Watch out, Takagi. Momo's a monster when it comes to eating."

"Shut up," Momoshiro said.

"And he doesn't even have the grace to look embarrassed!" the boy added, smiling happily. He looked remarkably cute for a first year. "I've got to go meet up with Sachika-chan, now. Can't keep the girls waiting…" He wiggled his fingers cheekily.

"Be gone, pest," Momo waved. I waved, too, though I'm not sure why.

"And don't worry too much about the handbag thing;" Momo muttered to me, "Ryuu's just weird like that."

I nodded. There's a funky one in every bag of beans.

--

TBC.

--

_So what'd you think? It's awful, isn't it. XD By all means, maul me with your thoughts._


	2. Chapter 2

**Title:** _The Evolution of Ryuuzaki Sakuno_, by ezylrybbit**  
Rating:** T. Profanity and lots and lots of people seducing each other. XD  
**Summary:** This is a story about girl power, and what a girl can do when she's desperate. RyoSakuOC, not in that order, and where the OC is decidedly male. Do I disappoint?

--

_chapter two - identity, revealed!!_

--

She's a pretty girl. Five foot six, standard runway-model figure. Flaunts it, too, stacks a few less-perfect sidekicks around her to make her striking face stand out. The skirt on her uniform is three inches short of the dress code, but no one says anything because her legs are enough of an excuse. Tight ass, but probably from dieting (it's more flab than muscle), and her chest is a C-cup, which makes me wonder if she's either into silicon or not really Japanese. Unhealthy amounts of Covergirl and Maybelline line her eyes because she's worth it, thin bubblegum lipstick on lips that should only be legal in Roppongi. Even the teachers walk around her. She wouldn't need the glowing neon signs on top the hill to flash SLUT through the streets.

I'm a good calculator of personality from appearance, I think, and here's a bitch if I ever see one.

She giggles, brushes past my shoulder when she walks past me in the halls. Fakes a trip two feet later, gives me an excuse to catch her. Rubs her breasts against my arm, coy smile, eyelashes bat. I know her from the Seishun Gakuen yearbook, voted Most Unforgettable Beauty of their year. Tactician Osakada Tomoka, reporting for duty.

"So you're the queen around here?" I ask, because it always pays to be nice to people like her.

"Tomoka-desu~" She flashes me a sweet smile, cutesy cute acts don't fail her, leans over and pecks me on the cheek, "You've saved me, O Handsome Stranger."

I push my glasses down a little, look deep into her eyes and enough to make her start to squirm. Yup, blue contact lenses. Should've expected she wouldn't go for traditional brown, "Takagi Yuuki. At your service." The sidekicks swoon; they're probably formulating rumors already. (I'm not particularly disgusted by her. Girls have used this trick on me before, and it's really more embarrassing for them than it is for me. Instead, I have fun tickling their wild imaginations of devastating romance. It's what makes me the player.)

"Ah, Yuuki-sama, is it?" She says with a little pout. I raise my eyebrows. I can feel her rub her ass against me; she's becoming aroused (awkward, much?); "There's a party tonight. Atobe Keigo's mansion, I'll take you there. Big tennis stars are showing up, they say. Come with me?"

"Sure, I'll go," I shrug. No plans tonight. I'm always up for going out with girls who give me their names two minutes before they start rubbing up against me.

She wraps her arms around my neck, and I take the cue, pick her up bridal-style. We must be in some fancy opera. Only I'm a tennis player (not a ballerina) and my arms are still sore from the ranking tournament, and she's fucking heavy. It's at this moment that I catch sight of Ryuu.

"Oi, Ryuu!" I call out. (Maybe he'll save me from this girl.)

"Takagi-senpai?" The boy turns around. He stops abruptly when he sees Tomoka in my arms, and then turns around and walks away without another look in my direction. _Help me? Hello?_

Tomoka slumps out of my grip, taking care to trail long manicured nails over my chest. "Oh, is that Ryuu? Best watch out. Your _Ryuu_ is a real slut, that's what they all say." Her voice turns cold, and I'm tempted to ask her what her idea of a _fake slut _could be. "I _will_ see you later then, Prince Yuuki?" She winks at me, saunters off.

I sigh. Those types are the most troublesome.

--

Inui Sadaharu is the captain of the Science Bowl team. He doesn't have to look at the door to know that someone's come into the room, and everything about him, from the spiky-black hair on his head down to the casual tennis shoes on his feet, spell out professional efficient professional is absolutely professionally and efficiently professional. He tells me that he's finished data-collection on me the minute that I walk in the door, that I'm going to be directly responsible for all the quantum mechanic free-response-questions he has in his binder, that if I slack off he's going to never let me see a tennis racket ever again. I tell him that I am not a slacker if I don't want to be one, that I have a lot more data on him than he does on me even though I don't really, that if he wants free reign over me I get proxy over Inui Juice, and he says fine-only-if-you-don't-lose and that is the end of that I walk out of the Science Bowl Meeting bearing no scars. I have made a new friend.

(Later, Inui passes me a note in Physics. Practice tournament at his house tomorrow. I pass the note back asking about Osakada Tomoka and Atobe Keigo's party, he responds with the air of a psychiatrist who has just been asked about his problem patients and now everything is set; lights camera action.)

--

The party quiets down. Everyone's been reduced from dancing into a low mumbling. Couples are making out on chairs, counter-tops and surfaces that would normally not be subjected to making-out. I have completely lost Osakada Tomoka to some Hyoutei boy with smoldering green eyes, but it's really good-riddance over what-the-hell-I-thought-you-wanted-to-fuck. I walk around, and that's when I spot some Rikkai Dai. I've been waiting to meet some Rikkai Dai.

"Oh look, isn't it the new Seishun baggage?" The silver-haired bastard says, jerking his head in my direction.

"Do you bite your thumb at me, sir?" I snipe back, grab a fruity drink from a wandering cocktail waitress.

The gentlemanly one with purple hair pushes glasses up his nose, "Forgive Niou; he isn't fluent in manners—" Niou snorts and sticks out his tongue "—Takagi-san, correct? Renji told me you were the reigning Hokkaido champion last spring in the high school division."

I try to make my expression neutral. "I was well-received. But I'm afraid I'm no match for the mighty Rikkai Daigaku."

"Ooh, is it going to get interesting around here again?" Niou cuts in before his friend can reply. "What do you say, Yagyuu, do we want him?"

"Do you want me?" I blink.

"He means something sexual," the one called Yagyuu explains before he pats Niou on the shoulder, "I think he's straight, Niou. Let's not prey on younger boys. Fuji Yuuta was enough of a challenge."

_Fuji?_ I back away and decide to leave them to their own devices before I run away and never return. The last words I catch are from Niou, "Well. Didn't stop us from giving Echizen Ryoma a lesson, did it?"

--

Luckily, I find Momo and Ryuu together before worse things can happen.

"Why were you hanging around with that Tomoka chick?" Momoshiro asks me, and I notice how Ryuu looks uncomfortable all of a sudden.

I frown, put on my best she-did-it face. "Girl was too troublesome to remove," I say, and I watch Ryuu perk up so I add a little more, "I don't like her very much. She's drunk now, and probably humping some Hyoutei boy. We just came here together." Momo smirks at that. He's about to open his mouth and say something more, but then he suddenly notices something off to his right. Brown hair and pink headbands, followed by a tentative wave, and yes—definitely fanboy-worthy.

"Oh my god, it's Tachibana Ann!" Momoshiro crows, just as Ryuu rolls his eyes and I find an empty seat on the couch. Momoshiro zooms off, and we're left alone.

"So, how is Seishun High, compared to Fukagawa?" Ryuu sits down beside me. There's a can of orange soda in his hand, which he offers to me. I take a gulp.

"Fucking horrible," I say, "I'd rather get cut open by five chainsaws than go back to my old junior high."

"You're cute," he giggles, and I've got to restrain myself. He's…so girly.

--

(Okay, before I go on any further, I'd just like to say that I'm and absolutely, one-hundred percent straight. There's no doubt about it. I mean, I don't really care about sexual preference in other people—I'm not a hardcore gay-hater or anything—but when it comes down to it, my sexual desire is limited to those of the female quality. It's just how I work. You know how you can walk into a bakery shop and know exactly what you want to buy, just because it looks right? I'd never pick fruit-flavored icing over jelly-bean buns—it's a fact of life. Not because I hate fruit-flavored icing, just because of my personal preference. That's how it works with sex, too.)

--

Ryuu throws his head back, and I get an eyeful of his neck. It's clean and this wonderful cream color and I can't help but lean forward and…

Holy crap.

Ah, what the fuck_. It's only a kiss,_ I reassure myself, _with another guy._ And the next thing I know I'm wrapped up in his arms and his tongue is licking my lips, hands stroking my back. It feels brilliant, and his mouth is softer than anything I've ever had. Unconsciously (or maybe it was just out of habit), I lifted my hands over his chest, and then I felt his hand over mine, and the clip of a bra strap coming loose…

Hold it. A bra strap? What the_ hell_…?

"You're a girl?" I yelped, wrenching my mouth away from his –ahem, _hers_– and feeling a little light-headed.

"What, you thought I was a guy?" Ryuu lets out another giggle. "Shit, I guess I _do_ kinda look like a guy, now. I never noticed."

"What's your name?" I asked, realizing that I had never known her name in the first place. I've seriously got to break this nasty habit of kissing people without knowing their names.

She smiled, "If you must. Ryuu's short for Ryuuzaki Sakuno. Doesn't my first name just make you want to throw-up? Pleased to meet you, Takagi Yuuki. You're a great kisser, by the way."

And that's how she left me, sitting on the couch with the look of having been recently whacked in the head by a cooking pot.

But wait. Ryuuzaki…_Sakuno?_

--

Here is a memory. I am still in Fukagawa Chuu, I am a third year, and it's the end of the school festival, after a day of making thirty thousand yen off of a kissing booth. I am tired, I am exhilarated, and I have tennis practice in about an hour.

_Crash._ Pens and erasers tumble down out of her hands, loose leaf paper drift to the floor.

"W-Wait…" I fumble for her pencils on the ground. The girl crouches down next to me, reaches forward. Our hands brush, and in another minute I know I'm going to turn fire-engine red. "Can I…Can I get your phone number? I mean, I-I…"

"You what?" She blinks.

"I-I…" I lick my lips, plough forward with a grimace. This is going to sound damn cheesy, "I kinda like you, Sakuno-chan."

"Kinda?"

I laugh nervously. "I mean, I'd like to, you know…"

She blinks again, calm. "Go out, you mean?"

I close my mouth, nod once.

"I'm in love with someone else already, you know."

(I feel like an idiot.) "What?" (_What? _But we kissed. And touched each other and everything. And she's hot. And _I'm _hot. How can she refuse me?)

"I don't think I'll be able to give up on him any time soon. Hey, I'm sorry I led you on, Takagi-senpai. I was pissed off earlier on and I shouldn't have taken it out on you. You're really too cool for me."

My mouth is dry. "W-Who is it?"

"What do you mean, who is it?"

"Who you like."

She smiles (_it's such a beautiful smile on that pretty face; beautiful features and smooth long hair and she doesn't wear makeup because she's got nothing to hide_).

"It's a secret, ne."

She's picked up all of her pencils now, tosses them back into the case easily. Gathers up paper and curls a small hand around the ring of her notebook (_delicate fingernails and beautiful fingers and ink stains on the tips_). Stands up, dusts the dirt off her jeans (_she has perfect legs and perfect posture and she can probably dance though I'll never get to see_). Walks away and doesn't look back.

That was my memory of the single most beautiful girl I've ever met.

--

_Um. I'm sorry it's a fail update? I'm sorry I took like a year? Thanks for reading! "XD Reviews of all sorts are wonderfulwonderfulwonderful._


	3. Chapter 3

**Title:** _The Evolution of Ryuuzaki Sakuno_, by ezylrybbit**  
Rating:** T. Profanity, twisted ways of thought. Ouran.  
**Summary:** This is a story about girl power, and what a girl can do when she's desperate. RyoSakuOC, not in that order, and where the OC is decidedly male. Oh~no!  
**Notes**: This is a filler chapter. Lotsa character development, that's right. You may skip if you so desire. ;D

--

_chapter three - waiting waiting waiting  
_

--

Fuji Syuusuke is the one who puts me up to it.

--

To tell the truth, I am actually very fond of money-making, especially by way of my looks. It's every capitalist's dream—profit from absolutely nothing. If I had my way with the club commissioner, I would have probably created my very own Seishun High School Host Club and taken to keeping around a few vintage vases for the prettier scholarship students to bash around. It's good business, that's what it is.

--

Kaidoh Kaoru is much cuter in person than Momoshiro gives him credit for. The way he moves up and down the court is extremely fluid—kind of like the stuff in the plastic tubes they keep in the general hospitals for psychiatric patients on biofeedback (capillary action fascinates me). Inui had given me some information on the buggy-whip shot beforehand, and now that I actually get to see it in action, why—it's really marvelous. Kaidoh has a really nice body. Healthy muscle growth, the reward of long term stamina-training. He's got lovely shoulders, too; enough to make me jealous. (The boy even blushed when I told him. Maybe he has a thing for men with glasses?)

"Stop hunching over your shoulders. Only cross-country runners do that." I give Kaidoh a smart pat on the back after we'd finished up a practice doubles match with Fuji Syuusuke and Kikumaru. You did well, Kaidoh-kun. I see the flash of camera lenses from my right, and angle my face that way. Perfect, perfect.

Kaidoh flashes me a tentative glare. "Uh. Thanks?"

Uh, uh. No glaring for the camera. I won't shut up, not yet. Time to go off on a tangent. "It's not good to keep pouting at me, Kaidoh. I hear that watching other people shower is a really good cure for pent-up sex drives," and now I lower my voice (flawless, Takagi, flawless!), "I think that's why Fuji-senpai likes it so much, na?"

My hair brushes against his lovely shoulders, and Kaidoh-kun blushes.

(Flash, flash. Work it, baby!)

And I have officially come on to my first tennis club member. It feels great. I wonder how many shots the fangirls in the bushes have managed to snap of the two of us. Seven-hundred? Eight-hundred? The photo-book black market will have a field day with this, thanks to Takagi-senpai. And with each photo-book sold? Ten-percent profit, that's right. In the locker room, Fuji congratulates me on a job well-done. Tezuka fixes me with a stony glare (he must be jealous), Kikumaru pops bubblegum, Oishi frets a little before resigning himself to pitiful silence, and Kaidoh (he's the victim) locks himself inside a bathroom stall. Momo gives me thumbs-up, and Echizen Ryoma looks once in my direction before he walks out the door with a grunt.

The initiation ceremony is over.

--

In the two months of my stay at Seishun, I have taken to fraternizing with the enemy. You wouldn't believe it, but some of the bastards from the other schools are really interesting. Just yesterday, I shared a cup of coffee in an haute-couture shop with the genius Oshitari Yuushi. We compared tennis moves, and he even made a date for a few matches. We'd have been best friends if Atobe Keigo hadn't ended our meeting by dragging Yuushi away around the hips. And after our first unlucky confrontation, Niou and Yagyuu from Rikkai proved to be much better tea party hosts than I first imagined (never mind the fact that Niou had tried to feel me up from behind on several occasions—I guess it _is_ possible to get used to it when you're hanging out with a bunch of hot and sweaty boys who do nothing but toil all-day long and into the nights playing hot and sweaty tennis with other hot and sweaty boys).

It's also another form of reconnaissance, so to speak.

"Ryuuzaki Sakuno, huh?" Kirihara punches me on the shoulder, "Tough, man. She's taken."

"Taken?"

"Yup. Niou-senpai tried to ask her out after the Nationals in middle school. It was during that bastard's pansexual phase. You shoulda seen the flower-shop girl he was trying to woo. Funniest shit ever."

(Sexuality can have _phases?_) I tried to imagine the silver-haired flame-boy getting down on one knee in front of Ryuu, and couldn't help but secretly laugh. "What happened?"

"Flat-out rejection happened," Kirihara smirks, "Niou-senpai deserved every bit of it, of course. He was making some real dirty comments about Ryuuzaki's body, I heard. Ryuuzaki slapped him for it, too, and then her friend, that Tomo-something-or-the-other? She said something really weird, and then the next we knew, Ryuuzaki Sakuno had turned into a monster."

"A monster?"

"Yeah. She took out her tennis racket and basically went psycho bitch on Niou and her best friend. None of us saw her over the summer before high school, you see, and in that time, she'd totally cut her hair all off and started to dress like a dude. Somehow it made her more attractive, anyway, and that's probably how senpai even started to notice her, though no one could see her boobs any more. But you know, what was the most amazing was that she'd gotten _good_ at tennis. Well, good for a girl, at any rate. Like, she learned the twist serve. It wasn't as sophisticated as that Echizen brat's, but still—_twist serve!_ Can you imagine? It took me two months to get that one down, and I was really good at tennis, too."

_She must have worked hard for it. _"Well. What was she like before?"

Kirihara's brows furrow, "She used to be a hot mess in junior high, that's what I remember," he says, taking another bite of his sandwich, "her grandmother's Ryuuzaki Sumire. What a hardcore tennis coach. Could hear that woman's yell five miles away."

"So, wait. How is she 'taken' now?"

Kirihara shakes his head. "It's a wonder you go to Seishun High School at all. Haven't you heard? Ryuuzaki Sakuno's been going out with Fuji Syuusuke for two years now."

--

(Fuji Syuusuke couldn't be straight, he just _couldn't _be. It wasn't possible. Images confirming Fuji's sexuality pop up in my head. What could possibly make someone who reads gay porn novels date a girl? Fuji-senpai has the attention of half the girls and one third of even the manliest men at school. He's pretty enough to win Atobe Keigo's affection, molests Tezuka every other day of the week.)

--

I remember her, now.

She likes removable ladybug erasers, laughing out loud in front of television sitcoms, and peeling every bit of that white skin off an orange and eating it before chewing on the flesh. She had a tingly laugh, slightly-creamy smile, flashing eyes. She was pretty in the unconventional way, pretty in that intrinsic, more-happy-than-forced way. She didn't care about what other people thought about her, but she gossiped like a fiend. Kept average grades in class, but got by because her teachers were fond of her. Really a one-hundred-percent perfect girl. We were neighbors on the same street, and sometimes during the afternoons I could hear her practicing sonatas and minuets on her piano—her fingers must look beautiful, gliding over the black and white piano keys. We'd walk home together on some occasions, and I would learn more about her on those days, the title of the songs she played, the current television dramas she was following. I stayed over at her house for dinner, once.

She isn't Ryuuzaki, but she is every way like Ryuuzaki.

And I loved her, I really did.

I remember her, now. She moved away to Shikoku in the spring of the year I started playing tennis.

--

Me and Ryuu have a heart to heart soon enough, directly after I try to kiss her a second time. We are on the dusty end of a metal storage bin in a fairly peaceful park, sipping cold drinks from a vending machine and letting the wind play tricks with our hair. There's no tennis practice today; it's nearly sectionals time, and Ryuu had told me to meet her there earlier that day. It's a popular hangout for Seishun couples, Ryuu had said; and now I've got something to tell me in the park.

"I'm sorry—I didn't mean to call you a guy," I say, shuffle to the other side of bin.

"Oh, don't worry about it," Ryuu smiles, dangles her feet on the side, and then she grows serious, "I can't kiss you any more, Takagi. Even though I kinda started it, I can't finish up."

"Why not?" I ask, and I don't really expect an answer. Ryuu lies back down on the metal of the storage bin. Her short ponytail is coming loose; it frames her heart-shaped face and she looks really pretty. She fingers the straw of her drink and crumples the napkin of a finished melon bun into a paper ball, bats it around with her hands.

"I used to be really weak," Ryuu finally says, and her voice is hushed, now, "Really weak."

"I don't believe it."

"Oh, trust me," she laughs, and the sound is more bitter than playful, "I was an idiot. My best friend back then was Osakada. Remember her?" I remember her. "Yeah, _that_ bitch. Wanna know what she did to me? Those were the crazy days. We used to stalk Echizen a lot, you see, and she was always going on about Echizen in junior high, even though she knew I liked him more than anyone else in the world. When I started playing tennis, she did too, but we both knew it was to get Ryoma-kun's attention. It was a kind of a double-edged sword, after that. I couldn't talk to Echizen without Tomoka lagging behind. And then one day, she asks him out for real, on the same day she had encouraged me to confess to him. What a typical bitch thing to do, right?"

"Right," I say, "But Echizen didn't agree to go out with Osakada anyway, did he?"

Ryuu laughs again, "Oh, but he did."

(I can only stare.)

"…They broke up like two days later, but not before I catch them making-out in the locker room closet, of course. And the thing was…"

"The thing was?"

"The thing was," and now the Ryuu's quiet; she looks up at the sky and breathes out once, twice, deep and slow, "the thing was, he really looked like he was enjoying it. That bastard Echizen. And I knew then. At that point, I had always thought that, sure, Ryoma didn't care for me, but he must have not been very fond of Tomoka, either, right? But I guess it wasn't the case."

"I don't think anyone liked her very much," I console her. It's absolutely true, though, at least in my eyes.

Ryuu rolls her eyes, "You'd be surprised. She's got the looks for it. She used to spend three hours every morning choosing clothes and applying glitter to her eyeballs; probably takes up_ five_ hours, now. She hates me, too, because she still sucks at tennis –who can play with two-inch long nails, anyway?– and because I'm actually popular with the guys now, you know? But it doesn't matter because Echizen still wouldn't look my way—"

The thought strikes me fast, and I finally understand what Ryuu's trying to tell me. "You still like him, don't you? Echizen. Even though you're going out with Fuji-senpai."

Ryuu stills. The world pauses.

"I'm sorry," she says finally.

"You don't have to apologize for it," I look away.

"I do," Ryuu says after a while, "But I do. Because it's what I've been trying to do all along. Don't you see? Ryuuzaki Sakuno hasn't changed at all. I started playing tennis for Ryoma-kun, you know. I worked hard, got into the girls' team, cut my hair and started going out with Syuusuke—it was all for him, no one else. _I'm in love with him. _I've never really liked anyone else. Everyone, even Sachika-chan tells me to give up, that it's just a little infatuation left over from my middle school days, but I won't because it's all I've got left. I can't stop. I go to sleep every day and I can think about in bed is the way he looks at me and the way he sees me and why his hand brushed against mine today and why I'm such a fucking idiot for liking him. Am I pathetic or what?"

--

(And you know what's crazy? She's absolutely right. It _is _pathetic. Changing yourself for someone else, hoping and praying that they'd look you in the face at least once, so as to at least justify your existence. It's the worst feeling in the world.)

--

Inui, to my surprise, stands on Ryuu's side.

"There have been only five people in the world who have completely defied my data. Echizen was one of them, Ryuuzaki was another."

"But they're on completely different standards," I say, because it's obvious and practically given.

Inui just glares at me from behind his glasses. The lenses twinkle menacingly. "In the world of data, defying calculated conjecture essentially stimulates and even distorts change in probability, to the proportions of four-dimensional space. Relativity in the ultimate realms of relativity. If the Tezuka Zone is a galaxy in space, then Ryuuzaki Sakuno would be a black hole. Put these in terms of quantum mechanics, and Bohr would be absolutely correct in saying that we cannot let descriptions from experiments determine that the movement of atoms and electrons in space and time actually resemble that of classical particles. Shouldn't you be familiar with it, Takagi?"

I gulp. "I'm familiar with it, sure, but how do quantum mechanics tie in with Ryuuzaki, at all?"

"Ryuuzaki Sakuno went beyond her potential. Beyond everyone's expectations. She defied logic, reason, probability, and time. A typical Heisenburg indeterminant, wouldn't you say?"

Inui is bullying me with science, I realize.

"I'll look up the sample tests for you," I concede.

"Good boy," Inui says, pushes his glasses up his nose.

"Oh, _fuck_ you."

--

TBC.

--

_The ratio we're at is 1 review per every 191 hits. Dang guys, even my batting average is better than that. Review, ne. I'm a review whore, remember? :D_


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